17 Facts About Alice Liddell

1.

Alice Liddell shared her name with "Alice", the story's heroine, but scholars disagree about the extent to which the character was based upon her.

2.

Alice Liddell was the fourth of the ten children of Henry Liddell, ecclesiastical dean of Christ Church, Oxford, one of the editors of A Greek-English Lexicon, and his wife Lorina Hanna Liddell.

3.

Alice Liddell became a close friend of the Liddell family in subsequent years.

4.

Alice Liddell was three years younger than Lorina and two years older than Edith, and the three sisters were constant childhood companions.

5.

However, it is possible Alice Liddell was named in honour of Leopold's deceased elder sister instead, the Grand Duchess of Hesse.

6.

Alice Liddell married Reginald Hargreaves, a cricketer, on 15 September 1880, at the age of 28 in Westminster Abbey.

7.

Alice Liddell denied that the name 'Caryl' was in any way associated with Charles Dodgson's pseudonym.

8.

Alice Liddell became a noted society hostess and was the first president of Emery Down Women's Institute.

9.

Alice Liddell took to referring to herself as "Lady Hargreaves", but no basis existed for such a title.

10.

For most of her life, Alice Liddell lived in and around Lyndhurst in the New Forest, in the county of Hampshire.

11.

On 4 July 1862, in a rowing boat travelling on the Isis from Folly Bridge, Oxford, to Godstow for a picnic outing, 10-year-old Alice Liddell asked Charles Dodgson to entertain her and her sisters, Edith and Lorina, with a story.

12.

The story was not unlike those Dodgson had spun for the sisters before, but this time Alice Liddell asked Mr Dodgson to write it down for her.

13.

Alice Liddell promised to do so but did not get around to the task for some months.

14.

Alice Liddell eventually presented her with the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.

15.

Alice Liddell used them as subjects for his hobby, photography.

16.

Dodgson himself claimed in later years that his Alice Liddell was entirely imaginary and not based upon any real child at all.

17.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice Liddell moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes.